These days price rises seem to unfortunately be as common as April showers aand the latest service with a suspected price hike in the works is Spotify.
The music streaming service has been changing things up a lot in recent years. First it went all in on podcasts and then audiobooks and now has even added music videos (and educational videos). This constant pivoting has been an attempt to stop the service from putting up prices and fix profitability issues. But it looks like that battle has been lost and prices will once again jump up.
According to Bloomberg, prices are set to go up by between one and two dollars a month in the UK, Australia and other regions by the end of the month, with the USA to follow later this year.
Bloomberg also states that this price will be for the premium subscription as we know it now, which includes unlimited music, podcasts and 15 hours of audiobooks a month. This will be undercut by a cheaper plan (at the current £10.99/$11 price) that includes unlimited music and podcasts but no included audiobook access at all, you'll have to buy them separately.
Time to switch to Tidal?
If true, the loss of audiobooks wouldn't really change how I use Spotify but yet another price rise would be hard to swallow. Especially as one of Spotify's main competitors Tidal just last month simplified its subscriptions and announced it would lower its prices.
The new 'Tidal Plan' as it is known will drop on April 10th and become the sole subscription on offer (there will be no free plan). But what's so great is this new plan will be $11 a month and come with almost all of the benefits of its soon-to-be-defunct HiFi Plus subscription (currently £19.99/$19.99). That means for a price equivalent to Spotify's current fee you'll also get lossless audio, something the green giant doesn't offer.
It's a compelling case and if Spotify does raise prices, there might be a few new subscribers to enjoy the new deal.
